


A Fire to be Kindled

by keptein



Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, smart!steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keptein/pseuds/keptein
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It makes perfect sense, of course. The serum gave Steve the perfect body, so why wouldn’t it also give him the perfect mind? In the quietness of his own mind, Tony can admit he’s a little stung Steve didn’t tell him, but he’s not really surprised.</p><p>(Or: the one where Steve is smarter than Tony, and neither of them deal well.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Tony doesn’t notice it at first. He’s still remembering _“It seems to run on some form of electricity!”_ , has labeled Steve as an old-fashioned good guy without a good grasp on science and then promptly written that part of him off – except for the occasional joke. To be fair, that’s not all his fault – he’s Tony Stark, he has important people to do and things to see, he can’t spend _all_ his time speculating about his new team mates.

Then, Steve and the rest of the Avengers slowly take residence around him, and Tony still doesn’t notice. Okay, so he has to eat that remark about Steve being confounded by electricity when Steve proceed to use his (unnecessarily complicated – it amuses Tony to see people fail) microwave with ease, but he still doesn’t _notice._ Not until he and Bruce are discussing a hypothetical physics question Tony stumbled over online and Steve helpfully chips in about how, the last time he checked, they had to take relative rotation into account for that to work.

Bruce is left explaining to Steve that their scenario is happening in a hypothetical reality while Tony gapes, because no one told him the serum gave Steve _brains_ as well. (The trouble he was in before is nothing compared to this.)

*

It makes perfect sense, of course. The serum gave Steve the perfect body, so why wouldn’t it also give him the perfect mind? In the quietness of his own mind, Tony can admit he’s a little stung Steve didn’t tell him, but he’s not really surprised.

Steve doesn’t think it’s a big deal at all. “I learn faster,” he says with a shrug when Tony finally asks him about it, “It’s come in useful a few times.”

“I’ll bet you it has,” Tony says. He immediately thinks of German and quick thinking behind enemy lines – he’s not sure whether it’s Steve or himself who doesn’t let Steve lose the persona of a soldier. “How does it feel?”

“Faster,” Steve repeats with an amused curve to his lips. “Everything makes sense faster.”

“Interesting,” Tony hums. It does explain Steve’s relative ease, adjusting to the 21st century – Tony has been quietly impressed by how well he’s doing, and he’s not the only one. Steve maneuvers cell phones and computers much better than first assumed, and Tony spent a good few hours lamenting how he can’t teach Steve technology if he already knows it. (He had some choice ulterior motives in mind, of course, but that’s nothing new.)

*

A few days later, Tony gives the SHIELD and the rest of the team a debriefing on his and Bruce’s recent discovery, a stretchy pair of pants they’ve all been awaiting. Seriously, if Tony had a dime for every time he’s been inadvertently flashed Hulk-junk, he’d be rich twice over. He gives them all the Simple English version for the benefit of all save Bruce – and, if he reads the light in Steve’s eyes correctly, Steve.

He’s right – Steve finds him later, looking shy but determined in that unique way of his. “What would I have to read to understand the long version?”

“You want to learn to make Hulk-pants? Really?” Tony asks with raised eyebrows. “Well, Cap, I wasn’t going to say anything, but you _have_ been coming down pretty hard on Bruce’s cupcakes lately.”

“Shut it,” Steve says. He’s not quite smiling, but he’s stopped reading malice behind Tony’s joking barbs – it’s a step in the right direction. “I’m serious.”

“Well, that could – and has – filled a library,” Tony says. “Hold on, though, I’ll cough up some books for you.”

*

Steve returns the books two days later. Tony doesn’t bother hiding his surprise. “Not for you?” he asks, absurdly disappointed.

“No, I finished them,” Steve says, looking embarrassed. “They were— they were _easy_.” He says it like it’s a secret, like it’s something vaguely shameful, and Tony thinks, _oh_.

Steve has never been dumb, was probably too smart for his own good even before the serum, and he’s registered the changes the serum’s had on his cognitive abilities – but he hasn’t been _brilliant_ before, not like this, and his limits have yet to be re-defined.

Tony’s lips stretch into a smile. “Feels new, huh, Cap? Tell you what—” he takes the books out of Steve’s hands and puts them in the trash, the only reason he got dead-tree versions in the first place was because of Steve, “—I’ll explain this stuff to you, ‘kay? That’ll go faster.”

“You—” Steve blinks. “You’d do that? Really? You aren’t too busy?” He looks around the workshop, lit up like a Christmas tree with projects.

Tony huffs, and clears the holograms off his workspace with a wave. “Too busy to teach Captain America physics? _Never._ ”

Steve smiles.

*

None of the Avengers sleep much. Their reasons vary – Bruce is used to waking at the slightest footsteps, ready to escape out the back door and into the night. Steve doesn’t need to sleep much, a side-effect of the serum; Natasha and Clint are seasoned SHIELD agents, and Thor enters this occasional hibernation stage. Tony’s never slept much, has to exhaust his brain before he can rest properly, so altogether, they usually average out at four or five hours a night.

Still, night-time is one of the few sacred things in the Tower. Despite everybody knowing that everybody else is awake, they don’t have to deal with them, or even consider their existence. In a Tower mostly filled with explosive personalities, this time is sorely needed. It’s the only time Tony ever feels like he’s living alone again. The entire place is quiet, the common areas empty, and he tells himself it’s a breath of fresh air (except when it _really_ isn’t, and JARVIS has to do a head count for him).

In other words, Tony is surprised to find Natasha and Steve in the kitchen when he’s up to get more coffee beans at one AM. They’re eating dip, neat rows of sliced carrots and celery on the table between them. Natasha neatly dips a carrot and eats it in small bites while Steve talks, her lips curled in a small, intimate smile.

Tony blinks. “Uh,” he says, “hey, guys.”

“Hi, Tony,” Steve says, pausing. “You joining us?”

“Dunno,” Tony says, rooting in the cupboard for the bag of Italian roast he swears he saw here last week. He hopes it didn’t fall victim to Barton’s weird habit of eating coffee grounds. “What’re you talking about?”

“Steve’s telling me about his superior officers during the war,” Natasha says, after the sharp _crack_ of a celery stick. “They were quite the figures.”

“I’m sure,” Tony says, stealing a carrot and a large helping of dip. “Oh, hey, Steve, I was meaning to ask you, how’s the new reading going?”

“It’s going well! It’s very interesting,” Steve says. He glances over Natasha, who gave him a relenting shrug, and refocuses on Tony. “I actually had something to ask you.”

“Yeah?” Tony asks, taking another carrot.

“How do physicists justify superheroes?” Steve asks. “I assume it’s not just blaming it all on magic.”

“Fucking magic,” Tony says darkly, before perking up again. “Well, they work with a ‘miracle exception’, which, short version, is magic, and from there they just apply the laws—” As Tony explains and Steve listens avidly, neither of them give Natasha proper notice when she leaves – even though she takes the dip with her.

*

They spend a couple of weeks going over the basics, building Steve’s fundament. Smart or not, the guy still slept through some damn important scientific breakthroughs, and what with a war on, he didn’t exactly have time to read much before getting iced.

They usually dump down on one of the couches in Tony’s workshop, Tony commanding holograms to illustrate his point. This teaching gig actually doesn’t seem so bad, even though Tony was mainly thinking of it in lines of, _get to spend more time with Steve_ and less, _watching Iron Man’s paint dry is literally more interesting than waiting for people to understand stuff_ when he proposed it. Luckily, Steve gets it faster than Tony was afraid of, and some of his questions are refreshing or even downright interesting.

Thinking about it, he still wouldn’t touch school kids with a ten foot pole, though.

*

The autumn wind blows cold against Tony’s cheeks. He grumbles, wishing he’d brought a scarf – better yet, driven. The walking was Steve’s idea, and the others had quickly agreed, leaving Tony the sole protester. In a _dictatorship_ , he thinks viciously, there’s no such thing as five against one.

He’d debating the pros and cons of a Starktatorship when Steve falls back from the front to walk beside him, smiling slightly. “You okay back here?”

Tony sniffs. “I’m _great_ ,” he says, “just wishing for a warmed car instead of this.” He gestures to the windy street around them, bedecked with red and yellow leaves.

“This isn’t cold,” Steve says. He says it good-naturedly, but Tony still feels a ridiculous flash of guilt that he’s quick to brush off. “Besides, red and gold – isn’t that your colors?”

“Right,” Tony deadpans. “Iron Man’s stuck in a permanent fall collection.”

Steve laughs a little. “You could add a Christmas hat to the helmet once December rolls around.”

“I’d have to glue it on,” Tony muses. “Wouldn’t do to have it fall of during a dramatic showdown with Doom, or someone.”

“Or you could do a chinstrap solution,” Steve suggests. “Like a party hat?”

Tony bursts out laughing at the mental image, and Steve looks pleased. “What’s this exhibition for, anyway?” Tony asks, after they’ve walked down another street. He tends to zone out when he’s addressed as a member of a group.

“Oh, emission theory,” Steve says. “I was just going to ask you and Bruce whether you wanted to come, but the others were there when I asked, and they didn’t want to miss out.”

“They wouldn’t have,” Tony told him. “Emission theory is pretty much disproven, only a few people hold to it nowadays.”

“Really?” Steve asks, crestfallen. “Bruce didn’t mention that.”

“He probably didn’t want to hurt your feelings,” Tony says. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter much. It’s still very interesting.”

Steve side-eyes Tony for a beat, then says, “You think it’s boring as hell, don’t you.”

“... yeah,” Tony admits.

“Damn,” Steve says, slumping a bit, and Tony grins.

“Don’t worry about it, we’re almost there anyway. And seeing Thor trying to blend in with people on the street will never not be funny, so it’s worth it just for that. Trust me.”

“Okay,” Steve says. He looks like he might say more, but Bruce falls in step beside Tony, and all three of them talk the rest of the way.

*

“The point is that you should’ve _seen_ it, Clint,” Steve roars. He’s angry. Clint sits by the table, resting his knee, practically vibrating with tension. “It was a stupid, foolhardy risk and you should’ve _seen_ that it wouldn’t work!”

They’ve just arrived back from a run-in with Amora the Enchantress – and Tony doesn’t mind hot alien women, but he feels like a large proportion of the Asgardian population is batshit and/or evil, they should probably revise their parenting ways – and gotten by with a few scrapes each, except Clint, who had to jump off a building to get proper aim (one-trick pony much, Tony thinks) and was hoping the grey substance Amora had conjured would catch his fall.

Spoiler: it didn’t.

Clint doesn’t say anything, and neither do any of the other Avengers. Steve rarely loses his temperament like this, tends to be one of the more practical and level-headed of them. Tony’s only seen it a few times before, in all the months he’s known Steve.

“It looked like it would work,” Clint says finally, his voice rough and tense, and he shakes off Natasha’s hand as she lays it on his shoulder. “And fuck you, Cap.”

Bruce and Thor are both absent, but Natasha and Tony are standing around the two, watching. Tony feels like he should step in, somehow, but he’s never been good at calming people down – it’s the firing people up part he’s got down pat. He stares at Natasha, imploring her to do something before Clint gets worse fucked up, but she is busy looking between Steve and Clint.

Steve takes a step forward, and Tony shoots a hand out to stop him. He’s still in the armor, which is the only reason he can keep Steve from moving. Steve looks at Tony, who has his faceplate up, then deflates a little. “It didn’t look like that at _all_ ,” he says, and he sounds almost confused, unintended condescension coloring his tone.

“Well, _gee-whiz,_ ” Clint snarls, “I’m sorry we can’t all do highly complicated density math while in the middle of a fight, we’re not all brilliant _superhumans._ ” He gets up, and has to contain a full-body shudder at the movement – determined, he limps out the door. Natasha gives both Steve and Tony a look, and follows him.

Tony takes off his helmet with a sigh, and Steve takes it as an accusation. “I’m not wrong,” he says, “it was a stupid move, and he shouldn’t have done it.”

“I agree,” Tony says, “but Cap, you can’t tell him like that. Look, I know you’re not used to this, but you have to remember that you operate on a different level than most people.”

“Clint’s not _stupid_ ,” Steve says immediately. His loyalty and _faith_ in other people still astounds Tony sometimes - how he could yell at Clint like that and then stick up for him the next minute. Or maybe Steve’s just terrible at holding a grudge. “He calculates trajectory, and—”

“He’s specialized in that,” Tony cuts in. He takes Clint’s seat, and gestures for Steve to sit down. Getting out of the armor can wait a little. “Clint’s not stupid, but he’s been shooting with a bow and arrow for so long it’s second nature to him now. It’s not really a good thing to compare it to.”

“But it was so obvious” Steve says, lost, sitting down. Tony is reminded of shouting at his parents, his tutors, his maids, _no, no, no! That’s wrong, that’s so_ obviously _wrong, you’re doing everything wrong! Why can’t you just see what_ I _see?_

“To you,” is all he says. “Remember that.” They sit there in silence, until more of the tension bleeds away from Steve’s posture - he was, at the bottom of it, worried about Clint (they all were, Tony had his heart in his throat as he watched him fall). “Are you okay?” he asks, finally.

“Yeah, I just,” Steve says, reaches up to rub at his temples. “All of this gave me a headache.”

“Hmm,” Tony says – he didn’t know Steve could get headaches. “I’ve gotta get out of the armor,” he says, and Steve says, “Oh, right, yeah, okay.”

Tony raises his eyebrows, but Steve just takes a breath and gives him a nod, so Tony grabs his helmet and heads down to the workshop. There are some tunings he want done, and Amora’s yucky grey substance got into one of his boots and a knee joint – he has some theories about how to optimize joint movement without losing protection, so it’s just as well he has to redo it.

*

“And _that_ is how you make a steel-titanium alloy,” Tony says.

Steve inspects the bit of metal in his hands. “Not as thrilling as I was expecting,” he finally concluded. “Unpainted it looks like anything else.”

Tony snorts. “It’s a damn cool alloy, but it’s still _metal_ ,” he says. “What were you expecting? A free blowjob and the secrets of the universe?”

Steve shrugs. “Maybe a little,” he grudgingly admits, having long grown used to Tony’s casually crude language. “I—” He looks up at the ceiling. “Hey, how’d you make JARVIS?”

“A lot of alcohol and a lot of desperation,” Tony says bluntly. “Also, he took me a year and a half – really, you guys don’t seem to realize how incredibly complex and ahead of his time he is. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I invented a new power source, okay – he needs a lot of it.”

“Oh,” Steve says. His eyes have an admiring shine in them that Tony’s liking way too much. “Your other robots, are they as—” he hesitates.

“Smart? Amazing? _Capable_?” Tony bursts out laughing. “Oh, my _God_ , no. Jesus, Dum-E, U and Butterfingers are so far from JARVIS’s league it’s in bad taste to compare them. It’s like – it’s like comparing a bed-ridden five year old to Thor, okay.”

_“Thank you, sir.”_

“No problem, baby.” Tony turns back to Steve, who has that quirk on his brow. “Yeah?”

“Can you teach me that?”

“Programming? Really? It’s a whole other bucket of fish than what we’ve been working with so far.”

“I know,” Steve says. “I just— I want to know more about this century, and I want to—” _belong_ , he doesn’t say, but Tony’s pretty good at filling in blanks. Besides, he knows the feeling all too well.

Tony looks around, and hands Steve a laptop lying nearby, grabbing a tablet for himself. “Okay, then. Let’s hope you take to this as easy as you’ve done the other stuff, or this could be a rocky road.”

*

“Friend Tony!” Thor says, with a clap to his back that makes Tony stumble. “I am glad to see you are still among the living.”

“Ha ha,” Tony says, grabbing an orange juice from the fridge and drinking straight from the carton. Natasha makes a noise of disapproval from where she’s sitting by the kitchen table, solving sudoku.

“The good Captain is with you?” Thor asks.

“Yeah,” Tony says, wiping his mouth and putting the juice back. This gains him a louder noise of disapproval. “We’re science-ing.”

“You two have been science-ing rather a lot,” Thor observes mildly. “I pray you do not forget that there are others who enjoy your company.”

“Are you feeling _neglected_?” Tony asks incredulously.

“He just means that it’s been a while since we’ve seen either of your for more than five minutes,” Natasha says. “And he’s right. Steve hasn’t been at our sparring sessions.”

“Huh,” Tony frowns. Steve and Natasha’s work-outs have been a tradition for quite a while now, and Tony’s caught more than a few – they do make quite the sight, after all. “I’ll mention it?”

“Thanks.”

“You and he must join us for dinner,” Thor exclaims. “I am cooking a renowned Asgardian delicacy.”

Tony’s eyebrows climb. “ _You’re_ cooking?”

“Yes,” Thor says, self-satisfied, “bilgesnipehove.”

Tony makes a strangled noise and looks at Natasha. He has no idea what that is, but anything with four syllables is bound to do some serious damage to his kitchen. “Please tell me you’re helping him.”

“Clint is,” she says, and he breathes an exaggerated sigh of relief. Thor just laughs, like the good sport he is.

“Anyway, guys, gotta get back to the science-ing,” Tony says, and leaves for the elevator, Natasha’s dry “Sure” following him.

Back down in the workshop, he finds Steve scribbling, almost hidden between Tony’s super-pedagogic visualization of different theories. It still makes Tony pause, seeing him like this – so comfortable in Tony’s space, making himself so at home that the workshop doesn’t just shout Tony anymore, it’s got crooks and nannies that are all Steve.

The sight of it all makes Tony ache.

“Hey,” Tony says, and Steve blinks and smiles wide.

“Hey.”

“Natasha told me you’ve been skimping out on your ‘sparring sessions’,” Tony says, making air quotes. It’s a running gag. “Does that mean I’m not to expect any dirty stories from you this week? Not that you ever share, this bastard.”

“Oh, damn, I completely forgot,” Steve says. “And last week I had a headache, I hope JARVIS told her so she didn’t wait for me.”

“.. you had a headache?” Tony asks. “Did Clint tell you what that means in this context?”

Steve shakes his head and looks questioning. “When working out?”

Tony takes pity on him. “Never mind,” he says. “Oh, and a general warning – Thor’s making dinner tonight.”

Because Steve is not a reasonably suspicious person, and puts too much weight on second chances, he doesn’t immediately look like he wants to hop on the ‘let’s stay down here and eat take-out’-train Tony was about to suggest. “What’s he making?”

“Bilgesnipehove?” Tony repeats, mangling the pronunciation. _Now_ Steve winces. “What? Do you know what it is?”

“He mentioned it to me once,” Steve says. “I must’ve been mistaken, though, because he made it sound like it was a ... head?”

They exchange a wide-eyed glance.

“Let’s hope you’re wrong,” Tony says finally. “How’s the math going?”

“I’m done, let me show you,” Steve says, and Tony lets himself be reabsorbed into their world of numbers.

*

(Steve isn’t wrong. Tony hasn’t had food poisoning since college, and he finds he hasn’t exactly missed it.)

*

Sometimes, Bruce joins them, and Tony knows he’s smiling too wide, laughing too hard. He can’t help it – he’s been dreaming of this for too long. Before he started going there, he thought MIT was going to be like this – an intellectual haven full of like-minded people, people who wouldn’t ask him to slow down or look at him as if he were a freak. (Then he’d begun attending, of course, and found out the reality was vastly different. The way he was so thoroughly, indefinitely ignored by the hard-working students of MIT was so worse than the bullies of his high school, who’d spit in his face and call him a _fucking weirdo, how does it feel coasting on daddy’s money?_ ) But he still remembers the dream of MIT being a place where Tony could just be _himself_ , terrifyingly clever without having to consider other people, and that’s what this is. Bruce and Steve are able to follow his train processes, even add to them, and that’s amazing, that’s – he wants to kiss them both and never let them go, lock them in his workshop so they can sit in this couch forever and Tony can feel this _forever_ , the three of them dictating equations at JARVIS and working out hypothetical scenarios for the most ridiculous things.

“Say you have a black hole,” Tony begins, and Bruce groans.

“No,” he says, “I veto everything with black holes. I’m a _chemist_ , Tony, not Watson.”

“I’ll have you know JARVIS is much smarter than any creation of IBM on his worst day,” Tony sniffs. “And with a much better moral compass, didn’t Kubrick teach you anything? Come on, man, live a little!”

“Say you have a black hole?” Steve repeats, and Tony turns to him with a laugh, perpetually surprised by his presence. He slings an arm over Steve’s shoulder, gestures with the other one to encompass the entire world, and says,

“Say you have a black hole.”

*

Tony’s up for a three AM snack when he finds Steve in the kitchen, rubbing at his temples with a tense expression. Steve barely acknowledges him as he enters, and Tony bumps him with his hip as he walks by to get to the fridge. “You okay?” he asks, rooting around for some cheese in between Natasha’s yoghurt and Clint’s half-eaten hamburgers.

“Yeah,” Steve answers after a while. Tony turns around and gives him an unbelieving look. “I, really, I’m fine – just headaches, I can’t get to sleep.”

“Sucks, I know that one,” Tony says. He slaps together a sandwich before getting ready to leave, turns to Steve with a glint in his eye. “Hey, you want to invent something?”

“I— sure,” Steve says, a mildly bewildered smile relieving his features of the tight frown.

*

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ,” Tony curses, long and loud, as Steve finishes writing his equation on the tablet. “You have never been as sexy as you are right now,” he says fervently, and Steve grins.

“Told you I could do it.”

“You could, you could, you _absolutely_ could, I— oh, hey, but what if we add the— or wait, maybe divide the variables by— gimme that, let me try.” He nabs the tablet, and, after a thoughtful silence, adds a few lines. He gives it back with a grin, and Steve reads it with a wondering expression, looks at Tony with wide eyes.

“That’s _genius_.”

“Isn’t it?” Tony says smugly.

*

Steve doesn’t ask about the arc reactor technology, and it makes Tony ridiculously grateful. The arc reactor is difficult - it’s _Howard’s_ in a way few things are, except Tony bled for it and nearly died for it in a cave in Afghanistan, and he’s earned the right to call it _his_ , his miniaturized arc reactor, his heart. He knows the blueprints for it are easily attainable online, doesn’t fool himself into thinking it didn’t get leaked somewhere between here and Russia, and he knows Steve has probably looked it up, but Tony still appreciates the courtesy of not asking him, of letting him pretend Steve doesn’t know anything about it.

*

They are at the same level, now. Tony doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t want to think about that might mean – he’s lost in the haze of being _challenged_ , of having to stretch his limits and _think._ While Bruce could follow him, Bruce couldn’t be forcing him to think like Steve is now – he hasn’t had to think like this since Afghanistan, and even then it was more of an epiphany in between lungfuls of air, a miniaturized arc reactor appearing before his eyes. This is like running when you’ve spent your life walking, something Tony has only experienced once when cooperating with that douche Reed – and that was nothing like this, because this is _Steve_ , and no one will ever compare to Steve.

Tony knows his eyes must be fever bright, feels like he’s drunk or high or building up to the most wonderful orgasm _ever_ as he paces, shouts words and numbers and variables at Steve and JARVIS, mind working lightning quick when Steve shoots down his suggestions one by one, finding ways to circumvent premises and pesky laws of nature, and Steve gets up and says, “Wait, listen, what if you— Tony, _what if you changed the cerebral cording to force decompression?_ ”

And Tony stops, looks at him with wide eyes, and Steve gives him a tentative smile, growing as JARVIS adds in, _“That would appear to solve the problem, sir.”_ Tony whoops, barely restrains himself from kissing Steve and gives him a hug instead, slapping his back and hurries to write it all down, to make JARVIS draw it up before this rush of brilliance fades, before this endless sea of numerals and blue eyes collapses in on itself.

*

It takes a few months, but Steve eventually asks about the suit.

Tony is, after getting a few moments to react by himself, _delighted_. Iron Man is part of him, the only part worth anything, and to this day, only one man other than Tony knows how it works. The blueprints are deleted off his server regularly, making the only permanent storing space Tony’s head – just a piece of the armor could do a _lot_ of damage in the wrong hands. To boot, Yinsen only knew the prototype, the roughest of the rough of sketches – Iron Man today is something very different than it was in that cave, and Tony is _vibrating_ with the possibility of showing it off.

As he’s showing Steve the armor, Steve slowly dissecting a stabilizing calf repulsor with an intensity that makes Tony warm, Tony suddenly realizes the implications of Steve being the _second person ever_ to see this, to understand it. Abruptly, the moment feels unbearably intimate, and Tony grows hot underneath his shirt collar. Steve’s hands run over the armor, inspecting how the metal folds on the stomach, the lines of wiring running down the exposed thighs. Steve is peeling away the steel-vibranium shell inch by inch, even though Tony’s explained his several different disassembling techniques – he is unwrapping Iron Man, but more than that, he’s unwrapping _Tony_.

Tony doesn’t want to analyze how that makes him feel, but there’s a tight grip around his heart that’s both terror and exhilaration.

*

“Tony?” Steve asks, and he’s timid in a way Tony thought he’d forgotten, holding some papers in his hands. Despite Tony’s best reasoning, Steve still uses paper, the artist in him showing. “Are you free?”

“Yeah, what’s up?” Tony asks. He’s sprawled on one end of what has now been dubbed the Couch of Cleverness, tapping out a rhythm at his hip.

“I have something to ask you,” Steve says, and the papers flutter. Tony’s heart starts to pound, just a little. He knows – he hopes he knows – what Steve will ask, has felt it building – has, unconsciously, waited for Steve to acknowledge it before doing anything.

“What?” he presses, when Steve dawdles.

“I was just wondering,” Steve pauses, and Tony wants to rip his own hair out in impatience. “If you used ununseptium for the inner walls and forced the fusion process, wouldn’t that react with the vibranium and cause greater efficiency and less power bleed?”

Tony blinks. And blinks. The warmth that was spreading in his stomach is doused in cold, hard fear. “What?” he grates out.

Steve, looking down at his papers, doesn’t notice. “I thought about it last night,” he says. “Look, I did the math—”

Tony moves like the air is molasses, and it’s about as easy getting it into his lungs. Numbly, he takes the papers from Steve. An exploded arc reactor is carefully, precisely rendered on one page, then several pages of equations follow, ending with an exploded view of Steve’s improved arc reactor. He knows his face is drained, but he can’t get any words out. Steve lays a hand on his shoulder, and Tony forces his face into a light frown. He knows what this means, but he can’t – won’t – focus on anything except this kneejerk sense of betrayal.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped,” Steve says, and his hand is heavy on Tony’s shoulder. “I only—”

“JARVIS,” Tony interrupts. “What’s it look like?”

 _“Captain Rogers’s calculations appear to be correct, sir,”_ the AI tells him tactfully, and Tony looks down at the numbers, studying each of them carefully.

He doesn’t understand it.

He doesn’t understand any of it, and Steve is still looking at him with that hopeful expression, and Tony has no idea how to say _sorry, buddy, guess I’m too stupid for you now too._

*

Since he can’t in good conscience force Steve out of his workshop, Tony has to get horrifically drunk in his own rooms. He can be altruistic, even if it feels like it might kill him – it solidifies Steve’s betrayal by making him lose his safe space, his haven, even though Tony rationally knows he could just say the word and Steve would make it like he were never there. (That would be equally as bad.)

But Tony’s selfish, and he clings to this reason for feeling like he feels, even though it’s unfair to Steve. It’s better than _Steve’s smarter than me and I can’t handle it_ , makes him feel less like a petty bastard. Hell, _Reed_ is smarter than him, and Tony deals with that okay, even if he personally thinks Reed is a bag of dicks. But this isn’t Reed, this is Steve. Steve’s an Avenger, and _Tony_ is supposed to be the genius of that bunch, okay.

He takes a swig of his drink and stares out into the night. He still has the glass pane layout from his Malibu house, even though the view is quite different - waking up and being able to see New York does wonders for his nightmares. The thought of those now makes him shiver and take another sip.

He feels _expendable_ , is what it is. _“Big man in a suit of armor,”_ Steve once called him, _“take that off, what are you?”_ _“Genius billionaire playboy philanthropist,”_ Tony replied, instinctively, even though playboy’s not true – hasn’t been since before Afghanistan. And now, he’s still a genius, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Steve can do anything he does, and do it better. As for philanthropist – hell, any one on the street can be one, so Tony’s left with his money.

Tony Stark is the Avengers’ money bag, their landlord and bank, but nothing more.

(He always knew this would happen.)

*

Tony gives himself some days to wallow in self-misery. He’s very good at throwing himself a pity party, and this time is no different – he has no hangover because he never sobers up, and both Rhodey and Pepper get a series of voice mails about “remember when I was, indisputably, the smartest guy on the team? Those were good days, right?” and “Rhodey, snookums, honeypeach, _pick up_ , remember college? Reminisce about college with me, Rhodey, please—”

(Just once, Pepper picks up, and Tony’s voice withers in his throat at the sound of hers. He hangs up without a word. It’s probably for the best.)

He writes lists, too. (Well, he dictates them to JARVIS, same difference.) Lists detailing why Tony is still smarter than Steve (those are very short, and boil down to _I have more experience and also I am handsomer_ – Tony isn’t a very focused drunk), why Steve’s smarter than him, why Tony should’ve expected this and he really has no one to blame for not preparing him but himself, and a last one detailing all the ways Tony can now humiliate Reed through Steve.

He’s gone for a long time without binge drinking like this, and the alcohol feels like acid on his tongue, his stomach rolling, but _damn it_ , Steve’s not allowed to take everything from him.

After three days of Tony getting thoroughly bored with his New York view, he hears Bruce’s unique way of knocking.

“Whassit?” he shouts, tries to get up from where he’s slumped against his bed.

“Steve needs you,” Bruce says, momentarily pausing as he takes in the mess of Tony’s bedroom. “Do I even want to ask?”

“Pro’lly not,” Tony admits. “Whass Steve want _me_ for?” He winces. “No, I mean— What’s Steve want me for?”

Bruce gives him a look. “His headaches are worsening, and they aren’t letting up. He’s in some serious pain right now, and I need you to pull yourself together and come see what you can do.”

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Tony says. His head clears for the first time in days. “Can I – take a shower first?”

“ _Please_ ,” Bruce says, and supports him when he staggers on his way to the bathroom.

*

After a long shower ruined by worry for Steve, Tony’s all cleaned up, and he feels all the better for it. To contrast, Steve looks like hell. He’s sitting in the kitchen, the room empty but for him.

“Tony!” Steve says as he sees him. Steve’s fists are clenching and unclenching, and there’s a hint of sweat at his brow. “Are you alright?”

“I— _me_? I think I should be asking you that, Cap.” At the sound of his voice, Steve simultaneously looks relieved and barely suppresses a flinch. Putting two and two together, Tony falls to his knees before him. He fits both hands on the side of Steve’s face, ignoring how that makes him tense up, and cups them over his ears, blocking out the constant hum of the refrigerator and, more distantly, the city that never sleeps. Steve’s sigh of relief is almost unnoticeable, but his murmured, “Thank you,” is not.

Tony’s lips quirk, and he rests their foreheads together, waiting for Steve to relax, for his hands to stop moving. Steve’s eyes slip closed, and Tony takes the opportunity to study his face. Now, he sees clearly all the signs he missed before – the beginnings of dark shadows under his eyes, the proof he hasn’t been eating enough – and feels like a _moron_ , so fucking stupid to have missed it.

“Your breath smells like alcohol,” Steve murmurs, breaking Tony out of his thoughts. His eyes slip open a little to regard Tony.

“Sorry,” he breathes.

Steve moves his head a little back to shake it. “It’s okay,” he replies, just as quietly.

His shoulders stay tense, and Tony can tell he’s not helping as much as he wants to. He hears a door open behind him, didn’t realize Bruce had closed it, and Bruce saying, “Tony.”

Tony reaches down to grip Steve’s hands, fits them over Steve’s ears. Steve rolls his eyes at him, then looks like he immediately regrets the action – Tony raises his eyebrows in a _told you so_ -gesture, and Steve obediently keeps his hands over his own ears as Tony stands up and exits the room.

“He can’t stay here,” he says as soon as the door’s closed, still speaking in hushed tones.

Bruce nods. “It gets worse when he tries to do problem solving, and he needs to be distracted from that. His senses, especially sound, seem hyperaware. I think his brain is overloading.”

“ _Great_ ,” Tony says sarcastically, giving Bruce a look.

“I read about it when I studied Zola’s research.”

“And you didn’t mention it until now?!” Shouting without raising your volume is an art Tony hasn’t really mastered, so he settles for gripping Bruce’s shoulder.

“I didn’t _remember_ until now,” Bruce says, obviously fighting to stay calm. Tony, in a rare act of self-preservation, lets go of his shoulder. “It was Red Skull research, it was irrelevant to my studies – Erskine’s research showed nothing of the kind, but they never put Steve’s brain to this much complex thinking.”

“Is it lethal?” Tony asks, hating himself for having to.

“I don’t know,” Bruce says. “Possibly.”

Tony takes a deep breath and rubs the bridge of his nose. It isn’t really Bruce he wants to shout at, it’s the part of him that viciously, gleefully whispers, _see, this is what happens when you try to out-smart Tony Stark_ , only held in place by the guilt coursing through his entire body. “Okay. There are some sound-isolated rooms further down in the Tower, we’ll clear one and put him there. Distractions, you said?”

Bruce nods.

“What, like trash TV?”

He shakes his head. “Books – _fiction_ – Natasha’s sudoku, drawing, I can’t come up with anything specific right now. What do you do when your head gets too much?”

 _I have a drink and hang out with Steve_ , Tony thinks, but that probably wouldn’t do Steve any good at all. _I have a drink and I find a warm body,_ except Tony doesn’t, anymore, and that _definitely_ wouldn’t help. “I watch nature documentaries,” he says finally, because Bruce looks like he’s still waiting for an answer. “I take the suit for a spin. Shit, Bruce, I don’t know. What are we going to _do?_ ” He blames the alcohol still in his body for the way his voice almost cracks, for the fleeting glance he throws the kitchen door.

“We’re going to fix him,” Bruce says, and Bruce is _amazing_ , Tony has definitely neglected his friendship with Bruce in this whole _wow, Steve is super smart_ -thing. He remembers the shy, uncertain doctor he met on the Helicarrier, compares it to the firm and unashamed Bruce standing before him, and really hopes he didn’t miss out on that process. “Now, I unfortunately can’t give him anything for the pain – the amount he’d need to feel it is too dangerous to his systems.”

Tony nods, and looks toward the door again. He imagines the Steve sitting on the other side, looking lost and in pain, and the stone in Tony’s stomach grows heavier. _It’s all my fault_. “I’ll go set the room up,” he says, and leaves before he goes back in to Steve.

*

“Bruce, Bruce, tell me what I can do to help,” Tony says, roaming around Bruce’s laboratory. They’ve set up the room, and Natasha’s outside it right now, standing guard. The room is, unfortunately, in one of the working levels, and a lost and confused worker might find their way there accidentally. Thor’s in Asgard, and Tony’s of half a mind to ask him to bring back some magical concoction, though he doubts this is a problem the Asguardians face often.

“You can _leave_ ,” Bruce says.

Tony gasps, mock-affronted. It’s probably ludicrously inappropriate, but Bruce knows how he deals. It’s fine.

Bruce takes off his glasses and cleans them on his shirt sleeve. “I’m serious, Tony. Go sober up, you still look like you’ve spent the last three days drinking yourself into a stupor. I’m amazed you’ve been as put-together as you have.”

Tony’s eyes shutter.

“I know you care about him and I’m not attacking you,” Bruce says, not unkindly. “But I need you at your best, okay? _Steve_ needs you at your best. I’ll do the grunt work while you go eat, please.”

Tony grumbles but complies, and that’s how he ends up sitting on the kitchen floor with Clint, each of them eating solidary _our team mate is going through a terrible time and we can’t do anything about it and that sucks_ -sandwiches. Tony and Clint make very elaborate and eloquent sandwiches – it keeps them from ever, _ever_ having to discuss their feelings.

*

The next day, Tony visits Steve.

The only sounds in the room are Steve’s claps between each push-up. Tony’s sitting on the bed, eyes resting on Steve’s form.

“How you holding up?” he asks, finally.

“Fine,” Steve says. He doesn’t stop, doesn’t even falter.

“What number are you at now?”

“Four hundred and twenty seven,” Steve says.

It’s the next day, and Steve looks better. Well, relatively – not enough that Tony can just brush all of this off, pretend it was a fluke. Enough so that he knows the room helps, though, which is good. “Huh.”

Steve continues pushing off the ground. _Clap. Clap. Clap._

“Where does it start?”

Steve lets out a small sigh and stops, low to the ground. "Frontal lobe,” he says, “usually.”

“That makes sense,” Tony says. “And then?”

“Primary auditory cortex, general occipital lobe, it varies.”

“Hm,” Tony says. “Do you think you could solve this?”

“No, I—“ Steve sits up, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “I _really_ don't think so.” His voice is lower, harsher, and his eyes are closed. “Please stop asking.”

“I'm just saying,” Tony presses, “if it comes in waves, then—“

“ _Please_ ,” Steve says, and he almost sounds like he's crying, both palms pressing against his temples. His breathing is short and quick.

Tony shuts up immediately. He sits there until Steve's breathing evens a little, then: “I'm sorry.”

“Don't,” Steve says tiredly. “Just – go, I think, Tony.”

He doesn't look up as Tony exits.


	2. Chapter 2

Days, and then weeks, pass. Thor returns, without the magical concoction Tony asked for. Whatever schadenfreude Tony was hating himself for harboring against Steve evaporates as Steve only worsens. He looks to be enjoying company, even if he can’t endure it for long – Tony sits with him a few times, even through the blame that’s still gnawing at him. If he hadn’t pushed Steve so hard, hadn’t encouraged it because ten year old Tony wanted the genius playmate he never got, this might have all been … delayed, at least, if not avoided. Delayed until Bruce realized, and remembered, and then Steve wouldn’t have to go through all this.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Steve says quietly from beside him. “This isn’t your fault.”

Tony snorts and turns to look at him. They’re sitting on the bed of Steve’s cell – because that’s what it is, a prison cell – and Steve looks _awful_. Going by the bags under his eyes, he hasn’t slept at all since the day in the kitchen, and the gauntness of his face has gotten more pronounced, even held in check by the serum. "It kinda is," he says, equally as quietly. Steve’s reaction to sound wavers, but none of them are willing to take the risk, and speaking in hushed tones has become common even outside the immediate parameter of Steve’s room.

“Tony,” Steve says, pained, and grips his hand from where it’s lying on the bed. Tony looks down at their hands, debates pulling away.

“Steve, don’t. Seriously, I don’t wanna talk about it, can’t we talk about – baseball, or something? Sesame Street, I don’t fucking know.”

Steve’s grip tightens. “Calm down.”

“I am calm, I’m calm as all hell, it’s just ...” Tony stops talking, looks at Steve with a sad quirk to his lips. “This is kind of killing you, isn’t it?”

“Lots of people have tried and failed to do that, I won’t be felled by _my own brain_ ,” Steve says. “I like to think I’m more dignified than that.”

Tony smiles, but there’s barely any humor in it. Silence falls, until he asks, “Would it be worth it? If this did, you know.”

“The serum? Yes,” Steve says, without a second of hesitation. “What I was able to do with it – helping all those people, being allowed to become something people could trust in? It made it all worth it.”

Tony looks down, sighs. “I guess I couldn’t expect you to be selfish even now, huh.” His voice is barely audible now, and his eyes are rooted to the floor. “Don’t die, Steve. That would – yeah.”

“I won’t,” Steve says. Tony looks up to meet Steve’s eyes, and he sees the strained lines around them, the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead. He squeezes Steve’s hand back once, before releasing it and patting it awkwardly.

“I’ll be going, then,” he says, and Steve nods resignedly.

Tony heads to Bruce’s lab. He’s read every scrap of paper related to the serum, memorized Bruce’s theses, but it’s not helping, he can’t _do anything_ – he can build or buy Bruce whatever medical instrument he wants, sure, but that’s not enough by far.

On his way to Bruce, the alarm calls. Approximately two seconds later, Clint is in front of him, clapping his shoulder and saying, “Don’t worry about it, bro, we’ve got this one.”

Tony raises an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, waving a hand. “Thor’s there already, apparently he was on a date with Jane. It’s just the Wrecking Crew.”

“Is Bruce going to be—?”

“Nope,” Clint says, giving him a look. “The two of you look about as bad, and while Natasha’s told me you’ve flown the suit in worse conditions, I _really_ don’t want to experience a sleep deprived and frustrated Hulk. Not after last time.”

They shudder in unison.

Clint’s comm sparks, and he nods to Tony before heading off. Tony looks after him, then continues down to Bruce’s lab. Punching the Wrecker in the face might be just the thing he needs right now, but any time away from the lab makes him guilty - even though he knows he’s probably more of a hindrance than a help to Bruce.

When he opens the door, Bruce looks up, with a smile Tony hasn’t seen for days on his face.

“Tony – I think I’m on to something.”

*

After Bruce and he have done their equivalent of jumping around because _science_ , they sit down to look over what Bruce has discovered.

Tony hmms while reading it over, keeps scrolling downward when the screen stops moving. “Wait, that’s it?” he demands.

“I’ll need to develop it more – this is just a theory, but it’s the only one we’ve got so far.”

Tony raises his hand for a high five while still looking at the screen, and Bruce complies. “Really, excellent work, Dr. Banner. Hey, the others went to fight the Wrecking Crew – you hungry?”

“I—” Bruce looks around for a sign of when he last ate, and only sees a plate of crumbs that Tony’s pretty sure he put there. “Yes, that would be great, thanks.”

“No problem,” Tony says gamely, “I’ll go order something, you continue with this.”

Bruce nods.

As soon as the door closes behind him, Tony lets out a long, slow breath. He closes his eyes and lets the relief finally pound through his body, warmth spreading alongside it, filling every part of him. He feels lighter, almost, and so fucking _relieved_. Steve is going to be okay.

He bounds back to Steve’s room, hits the button to request entrance impatiently.

It isn’t granted. He frowns, and presses it again. And again.

Finally, Steve’s voice comes through, sounding thread and thin. “What is it?” he asks, almost a whisper. Shit, he’s in a bad one, Tony almost feels bad for interrupting.

“Bruce has an idea,” Tony whispers back, unable to hide the giddiness in his voice, “We’re going to fix you.”

“Oh,” Steve says, and the sound is so small and ragged that Tony’s glad he can’t see him, can’t imagine what he must be going through to sound like that. “That’s good.”

Tony just nods, and the connection shuts off with a click.

*

“Bruce thinks he knows how to fix Steve,” Tony says to Thor, Natasha and Clint as soon as they shuffle in. Bruce and he are sitting by the kitchen table, each with a pair of chopsticks in one hand and a tablet in the other.

“My friends,” Thor says immediately, “truly these are wonderful news!”

“Yeah, great,” Clint says, but he is unable to entirely hide the relief in his voice as he steals some of Tony’s lemon chicken.

Natasha doesn’t say anything, but Tony can see the curve of her lips, the emotion in her eyes.

“When will the Captain be well and ready to fight anew?” Thor continues.

“If my theory’s correct,” Bruce says, “I should have a tempering solution set up by the end of next week.”

“It’s Monday,” Natasha says flatly.

“Well, we do after all have to convince the serum Steve’s brain was perfectly fine as it was,” Tony says. “Not as easy as it may sound.”

“How long does he have?” Clint asks.

“Maybe three weeks,” Bruce says, quietly.

Clint and Natasha exchange a look.

“If he’s still as brilliant as he was,” Clint begins slowly, “can’t you ask him for help? That would speed it up a lot, wouldn’t it?”

“No,” Tony says loudly and reflexively. He’s never mentioned what happened one of the first times he visited Steve, and it hasn’t been an issue since Steve’s deteriorated – but he forgets that Clint and Natasha are SHIELD’s finest, that their training has made them ruthless and pragmatic above all. It’s not a habit they can shake, it’s become an ingrained part of both of them. They’ve learned to view people differently than Tony does, and that gives them a distance he often envies. Right now, not so much.

Still, as his resounding “No” hangs in the air, both of their faces relax just a little.

Asking someone for help, though – Tony considers calling Reed, but it isn’t really his area.

“I would wish to acquire some of your ‘take out’,” Thor says in the slightly awkward air that follows.

Tony waves a hand. “I figured you’d be done some time, so I ordered for all of you. It’s in the microwave.”

After they’ve reheated their food, they join Bruce and Tony around the table. Natasha sits down next to him, and together, they observe the rest of the team – the tension that’s been settling around the tower is loosening, the talk and laughter flowing more easily than it has been for weeks. Months, if Tony’s being completely honest. “Steve’s really going to be okay?” she asks him, quietly.

“Yeah,” he says, giving her a fleeting glance.

She nods. “Good.”

None of them look at the empty chair.

*

Tony’s always disregarded deadlines. “You can’t rush genius,” he told his teachers and professors when they nagged him about the work he hadn’t done (because it was _mind-numbingly easy_ ); it was what he told Pepper when she complained of his week-long inspiration streaks that made him stay in the workshop indefinitely.

Right now, he wants to eat every time he said that stupid phrase – wants to invent a time machine to stop him from ever thinking it, but he suspects it wouldn’t help.

Because Bruce, _damn him_ , can’t be rushed. Won’t be rushed, at least, because the rate for failure is _blah blah unacceptable risks, Steve could worsen and die_. Which, you know, is a serious issue – Tony definitely does not want that, but they are a week into Bruce’s "two week waiting period" and Steve is only getting worse. Tony hasn’t been in to see him much, but he hears enough from the others to know how he’s faring. For all that Steve doesn’t seem to mind vulnerability in others, he’s still embarrassed to show his own – and so Tony staying out is a courtesy, really, and not because he’s afraid of what he might find.

But between that and being banned from Bruce’s lab, he is bored, and anxious, and all too ready to see all this over with. He rotates between the workshop and the main living room, unable to really focus on anything, until Natasha finds him in the television aimlessly watching MTV (yeah, Tony’s judging himself too) and raises an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, shut up,” he grumbles. His fingers are beating staccato rhythms against the couch.

She doesn’t say anything, just gives him a half-smile and sits down next to him. Her side is warm against his, and Tony doesn’t mind. He likes Natasha, thinks she likes him too – even though they never really _talk_ , she’s the only one on the team to see him almost die twice (and had to endure the horrible spiral of despair during the first round). It’s the sort of stuff that creates bonds, what can he say.

For him, she even endures half an episode of Jersey Shore before she has to switch the channel in disgust, and the laugh he lets out is still tinged with mania, but much calmer than it was.

*

Of course, they wouldn’t be the Avengers if they didn’t get attacked a few times - the villains of New York don’t seem to care about Captain America and the Hulk being out of commission.

On the plus side, Tony finds out that ripping AIM bots apart is a great stress reliever.

*

A week and three days later, and Tony’s standing outside Steve’s room, steeling himself to go inside. On the door, there’s a recently put up sign - he reads it while waiting for Steve to let him in.

VISITING RULES

1\. LOUD NOISES MAKE SMALL ANIMALS AND CAPTAIN AMERICAS FLINCH.

2\. IF YOUR CONVERSATIONAL TOPICS FEATURE ANY FOUR-SYLLABLE WORD, YOU WILL KNOW PAIN.

3\. IF YOUR CONVERSATIONAL TOPICS EVEN TOUCH UPON THE SUBJECTS OF ENGINEERING, PHYSICS, GLOBAL WARMING, ECONOMICS, OR INCLUDES AN EQUATION OF ANY KIND, YOU WILL KNOW PAIN SO BAD YOUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE BURSTING INTO TEARS AT RANDOM MOMENTS.

4\. STEVE SAYS HE’S TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT THE DODGERS. HE KNOWS THEY MOVED TO LOS ANGELES.

5\. HE’S ALSO TIRED OF TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER.

Damn, there go Tony’s planned conversation starters.

The light beside the door goes green, and Tony enters with soft footsteps.

“Steve?” he asks into the darkness. The only source of light is the one he brought with him, the arc reactor showing faintly through his double layer shirt.

“Hey, Tony,” he hears an exhausted voice say from below him. “I’m by the wall, come sit down.”

Awkwardly, Tony follows the wall until the arc reactor faintly outlines a hairy blob below him. He sits down. Steve’s hand loosely clasps his forearm, and Tony tries not to notice how clammy it is.

“Sorry,” Tony says quietly, after it’s become obvious Steve’s not going to say anything. “I’ve been meaning to visit, I just ...”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, and he sounds tired. It’s not, Tony knows, but Steve doesn’t sound like he’s up for arguing about it. “How have you been?”

Only Steve Rogers, Tony thinks with a twist to his mouth, can sit in a darkened room and suffer while still asking others genuinely how they are. “Oh, you know,” Tony says, “Bruce locked me out of his lab.”

Steve laughs a little. “How ever did you manage?”

“Reality TV,” Tony says, and delights in Steve’s snort of disgust. The grip on his arm tightens a little, and Tony stares down at it. The arc reactor isn’t good enough light, but he still imagines he can see Steve’s skin where it touches his own.

Tony drags his eyes up, looks into the darkness and listens to Steve breathe.

“I’m glad you came,” Steve mumbles – Tony wouldn’t have heard it if he weren’t listening avidly.

“No problem,” he says, heart in his throat as he turns his head toward Steve – but Steve is listing slightly, and his hand slackens, and his breathing evens and deepens.

Tony reorganizes their hands so Steve’s fingers are tangled with his own, and resolutely does not think about what that means.

*

One week and six days in, and Tony can’t sleep. That’s okay, because neither can Bruce, and Tony’s been allowed to keep him company – on the strict orders that he doesn’t try to get Bruce’s attention just because he’s bored or, heaven forbid, touches anything.

So Tony’s sitting on a table, tapping his fingers as the equivalence to twiddling thumbs, while he watches Bruce work. “Is there a lot left to do?” he asks finally.

“Not really,” Bruce says, “I should be done by tomorrow, like I promised.”

“Oh, good,” Tony says with feeling.

He waits as long as he can – which, let’s be real, is probably about five minutes – before asking: “Are you a kettle?"

“What— Oh, because I don’t boil when watched? No,” Bruce says, holding a vial up to the light and squinting at it. The lab is bright, but the New York outside is dark, covered in February slush.

“It feels that way,” Tony says.

“I’m working as fast as I can, you watching me or no. The probability rate for failure is—”

“I know, I know,” Tony interrupts. He doesn’t want to talk about Steve dying. He doesn’t want to _think_ about Steve dying.

They chat idly as Bruce works, and Tony’s about to mention how Pepper’s been going off with Coulson to what he suspects are _dates_ , when JARVIS stops him.

_“Sir, intruder alarm. Someone is climbing the Stark Tower.”_

“A climber,” Tony says with a sigh. It’s not the first time – villains, wannabe-villains, and crazed fans have all tried to climb the Tower, despite it being pretty much all window and, by the way, kind of deadly if you fell down. He gets to his feet. “I’ll go get the suit.”

Before he can leave the room, though, a figure crashes in through the windows and sprays the room in glass shards. It’s only through a lot of training being thrust into surprising situations that Bruce doesn’t Hulk out.

Tony swears and hits the alarm on the wall as the figure gets to his feet. He can’t leave for the suit, Bruce can’t Hulk out here and when he’s himself he’s defenseless – Tony’s pretty defenseless too, but he still picks up a pipe lying on the table beside him.

The figure raises an arm and shoots Bruce.

The Hulk appears instantaneously, and he roars loud and violent. It’s been a long time since he’s been let out because of fear, because of _threat_ , and not because Bruce releases him. He has to hunch to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling, and he grabs the steel table Bruce was working on, fingers gouging deep into the metal, and throws it on the figure.

The figure dodges, but slips on the broken glass on the floor and falls painfully. The Hulk picks him up—

“ _No_ ,” Tony shouts, uselessly—

and throws him out the broken window he arrived through.

The Hulk roars again, stomps his feet and bashes his fists against the ceiling. It resists, barely, but all of Bruce’s work is soaking on the floor, the fluids mixing into each other and in some places sizzling. The Hulk turns to Tony, who’s backed up against the entrance.

This isn’t usually a problem, he thinks furiously, hasn’t been for a long time – the Hulk _knows_ him now, knows all of them, but Bruce hasn’t slept for days, and has worried and worked himself to the bone.

“Hey, big guy,” Tony says, holding his hands up in a show of surrender. “I’m Tin Man, remember? That flying shiny thing? Friendly. _Super_ friendly. So friendly I could get sued—aah!”

He scrambles out of the way of the Hulk’s fist, which dents the door behind him.

“Shit, shit, _shit_ ,” Tony chants as the broken glass on the floor digs into his palms and butt, _where the hell is the others, were they on the other side of the planet?_

Just as the Hulk makes ready for another furious punch, Tony hears Mjolnir reverberating as it makes impact with thick green skin, and he breathes a literal sigh of relief.

*

It doesn’t take long until they get the Hulk calmed down again, once Thor gets him under control, and then they all sit on the couches in the main living room. Bruce is wrapped in a blanket, and he looks so fucking sad. “We lost it,” he keeps saying. “We lost my research, the anti-dote, oh, God ...”

Clint sits beside him, futilely trying to offer some comforting words. Natasha sits next to Tony and is methodically picking shards out of his palms – the ones in his ass had mostly only embedded themselves in his pants and boxers, thankfully, and his hands had borne the majority of his weight anyway.

“I have returned,” Thor says as he enters, “but, alas, without any evidence of our intruder.” He was out checking the street where the figure should have fallen, and found nothing besides some shattered glass.

“He’s either got help, or he’s a flier,” Tony says. “Who could it be?”

“Anyone,” Natasha says darkly, not taking her eyes off his palm. “There’s a long list of people wanting to hurt the Avengers.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Tony says, “he just wanted to destroy Bruce’s work.”

“But who even knows what Bruce is working on? Who knows Steve is sick?”

“Jane and Darcy,” Thor says, “we spoke on the subject when they visited two weeks past.”

“Fury and Coulson,” Clint says.

“All of SHIELD,” Natasha says.

“Pepper and Rhodey,” Tony says.

“Betty,” Bruce says quietly, pulling himself together. “And some of my fellow researchers before – before the big guy. I needed a second opinion, and none of you guys could help.” He looks at the rest apologetically.

“I’m going to need those names,” Natasha says, and Tony yelps as the tweezer pinches his skin hard. Bruce nods, and she says, “later.”

They sit in silence before Clint asks the question that’s weighing heavily on all their minds. “Uh, what happens with Steve now? Can you recreate the antidote?”

“Gathering the materials would take too much time,” Bruce says, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start, and there’s not enough time for that.”

“I have an idea,” Tony says, frowning, “though, _ugh_ , I hate owing Reed. He’s a dick.”

“Reed Richards?” Bruce says.

Tony nods. "Yeah, of the Fantastic Four." They haven’t really done any dealing at all with the Fantastic Four – Tony still quietly blames them for being in outer space when the whole _aliens attacking New York_ -business was going down, and he suspects he isn’t alone in that. “He should be able to help.”

“You know _Reed Richards_?” Bruce says, faintly. “Why didn’t you ever mention that?”

Tony waves a hand. “Smart people, social circles, you know how it works. It’s not like he would’ve been of any use before now. Anyway, let’s pop over there now, go ask him. Come on, no time to waste!”

Natasha pulls out the last shard and raises her eyebrows – and Clint voices her skepticism, in that weird connected thinking thing they have going on. “Isn’t it kind of late?”

Tony looks out the window, sees faint pinkening of the sky in the east. “Nah,” he says. “Reed’ll be up by now. Seriously, if you guys think _I’m_ a workaholic ...”

*

The Baxter building gleamed pink in the dawning sun, but Tony doesn’t have time to appreciate esthetics.

He presses the buzzer by the entrance, the rest of the Avengers behind him, and waits.

He presses again.

“Fucking Reed,” he mutters, and pulls out his cell phone. “Reed? Yeah, hi, it’s Tony Stark. Listen, I’m standing outside and I need a favor – put down your neutron-destabilizer or whatever and let us in.” He pauses. “The Avengers. It’s a bit of a crisis.” He hangs up, and the doors open obligingly when he steps forward.

The Avengers follow, and they wander through the foyer. After a short while, Reed greets them, hair mussed and his lab coat on. “Avengers,” he says, nodding.

Bruce puts out his hand for Reed to shake, but Reed doesn’t notice, and Bruce awkwardly returns it to his side.

“What do you need?” Reed continues.

“Have you heard about Captain America?” Tony asks. Reed shakes his head, looking half-perplexed in that way he always does. “Well, his brain is ... how do I put this delicately, _fucking itself over_. We had a cure going, but some villain broke in and destroyed it, and all our material with it.”

Reed nods slowly. “Follow me,” he says, lab coat swishing dramatically as he turns. Tony debates the pros and cons of getting into the habit of lab coats himself as they walk to Reed’s lab. “Dr. Banner,” Reed says, “am I correct in assuming you’re the main scientist on this cure?”

Bruce nods. “I am,” he says calmly, but Tony can totally see his inner fangirl spasming in joy. Whatever.

“What do you need?”

Bruce begins listing up various isotopes and elements, and Reed stretches his arm to punch in the security code of the door that’s still thirty feet away. When Bruce finishes up, he nods. “Right, I think I have most of that – except the unonatrium-phosphorate, unless I have something left over ...” He muses quietly to himself, and Tony and Bruce naturally fall in step behind him as they stop to enter Reed’s lab.

In the middle of the lab, there’s a blob levitating in the air. It’s about twice the size of a soccer ball, and purple. Tony decides not to ask.

While Reed looks around for the stuff Bruce asked for, Bruce stays with Tony. “He’s very kind, to just give us all this stuff,” he says, kind of reproachfully.

Tony waves a hand. “It’s just because he wants us out of the way so he can go back to studying his purple blob.”

“If you say so,” Bruce says.

“Ah, yes, here it is,” Reed says from the other side of the room, neatly depositing a small vial of unonatrium-phosphorate in the growing pile next to Bruce. “I was sure I had some. What did you say was going on with Captain America’s brain?”

“It’s hyperloading,” Bruce says.

“ _Fascinating_ ,” Reed says, completely sincerely, and his neck stretches so he can look more closely at Bruce. “Will you be publishing a paper?”

“Uhm, probably not,” Bruce says.

“A pity,” Reed then says, and his neck snaps back in place.

“Told you,” Tony sing-songs under his breath, and Bruce sighs.

“So, we have the stuff now, right?” Clint asks, appearing beside them. “Can you make it?”

“I should be able to,” Bruce says, “There’s another lab in the Tower I can use.”

“Great,” Clint says, clapping his shoulder. Tony goes over to have a quick talk with Reed while Bruce gathers up the stuff he needs, and they leave as soon as he’s done.

*

"I’m going to go check on Steve," Natasha says as they enter. Thor and Clint also deem themselves useless, and Tony sticks around to help Bruce set up the reserve lab. Then, he putters about sort of aimlessly – between the attack, the worry for Steve and the surprising ease with which the Baxter building visit had gone, Tony’s not really sure what he’s supposed to feel. He could sleep, he guesses, but it should just be a couple of hours – five hours at the max – until Bruce has his solution up, and it would be downright traitorous to go sleep now.

Instead, he sits and watches Bruce for two hours, and has just returned from the kitchen with breakfast for the two of them when Natasha bursts in.

“It’s Steve,” she says, “he’s not responding.”

“Is he okay?” Tony asks immediately.

“No,” Natasha says. “He started shaking and pressing hard down on his own head.” She looked at them meaningfully. “Super soldier hard.”

“Oh, shit,” Tony says, putting the plates down.

“I think you should sit with him,” Natasha says. She doesn’t say why she can’t, but that’s okay – Tony doesn’t have time to push right now, anyway.

“I’ll go,” Tony says. “Bruce, stay here and finish it.” Tony can see Bruce’s hands shaking slightly, but he still nods.

“I’ll hurry,” he says.

Tony half-runs to Steve’s room, punches in the override code, and the door unlocks with a click. He opens it slowly, and slips in without letting much light into the room.

“Steve?” he whispers, and doesn’t hear a sound. He unbuttons his shirt so the arc reactor can shine through his undershirt – the light is faint, but his eyes will adjust – and slowly steps into the room, looking for Steve.

He drops to his knees so he doesn’t accidentally step on him, and roots around on the floor until his hands find something clothed and warm. In the half-light, Tony can see that it’s Steve’s back, lying face down.

“Steve,” he whispers again, and doesn’t let himself panic. He turns him over, and is almost relieved by the tightly wound lines of his forehead, the way his eyes are squeezed shut – is _definitely_ relieved by the short, quick breaths that escape through his nose.

Tony can see a trickle of blood running down from Steve’s nose, and matching tracks from his ears. The dark makes the blood look black and alien. “Oh,” he says, uselessly.

Steve whimpers a little. “Tony,” he pleads, his voice hoarse, “please make it stop, I don’t think I can do this, it hurts, please, Tony ...”

Tony casts a panicked look toward the door, then looks down at Steve’s face, eyes still shut and brows furrowed in agony. “Ssh,” he says, tries to think back to what his nurses and maids did, what his mother should have done. “It’s going to be okay. Is there anything I can do?”

“Make it _stop_ ,” Steve says, voice small and choked, and then he’s raising a heavy hand to beat at his own forehead, slamming the base of his palm against his forehead. Tony moves to still him, but Steve smacks himself two times before laying his forearm across his eyes, shielding them.

“I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this,” Steve whispers, the corners of his mouth wobbling. It hits Tony then, how _strong_ Steve is, how incredibly well he’s held up throughout all of this.

“Bruce will be done soon,” Tony says quickly, to erase Steve’s vulnerable words from the air and to reassure them both. Steve’s laugh is an ugly thing.

Together, they wait.

*

When Bruce is finished, when the solution is made, there is no fanfare. There isn’t any sound at all in his laboratory, and he breathes out slowly as he looks at the clear fluid in his hands. He stands and walks to Steve’s room, slips into it much like Tony did. Steve’s asleep, but Tony’s eyes track him from the moment he enters, long adjusted to the dark.

“Steve,” Tony whispers, rubbing Steve’s shoulder, “Bruce is here.”

Steve makes a slight sound, and Tony nods to Bruce. Without further ado, Bruce pulls out the syringe and sets it deep into the crook of the arm settled over Steve’s eyes, where the arc reactor provides the best light in the room. Both Bruce and Tony’s eyes are tethered to Bruce’s thumb’s slow descent.

“That’s it?” Tony asks in a low voice as Bruce withdraws the syringe.

“That’s it,” Bruce confirms. “The serum needs to account for it and adjust, so he’ll be out for a while. Why are you lying on the floor?”

Tony shrugs, and stands up. His legs fell asleep long ago, and he has to steady himself on Bruce until the worst of the needles pass. “Help me move him,” he says when his own legs can hold him, and together they carry Steve to his bed.

Tony gives Steve one last, lingering look before they exit the room. In the hallway, he has to shield his eyes from the bright light until they adjust, and then he can see his hands are shaking.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” he says, kind of hysterically.

Bruce gives him an almost wide-eyed look. “Neither can I,” he confides. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to sleep for a week.”

Tony decides that to be excellent advice. He stops by the team on his way to the bedroom – it’s afternoon by now, and they are spread over the common areas.

“It’s done,” he says, first to Natasha, then to Clint, then Thor. Natasha says, “Good,” Clint says, "Fucking _finally_ ", Thor says "I am happy all is well once more" – and none of them even bother trying to hide the smile pulling at their lips.

“Will you join me in a celebratory drink?” Thor asks, but Tony shakes his head.

“Not that I’m one to turn down a drink, but I’m seeing five of you already. Think it’s best if I take a quick nap.”

“I see,” Thor rumbles.

When Tony gets to his bedroom, though, he’s still too keyed up to sleep. He vid-calls Pepper, and looks at the faint lines by her eyes as he tells her about Steve’s recovery.

She, too, sounds relieved.

*

Sixteen hours later, Tony’s stomach is loudly and insistently reminding him that not just machines need fuel.

_“Good morning, sir,"_ JARVIS begins once Tony starts showing signs of life, but Tony cuts him off.

“Gyah,” he says. Then, more intelligibly, “Can it, JARVIS. Start coffee.”

_“Very well, sir.”_

Tony reluctantly pads out of the bed, stopping only for a cursory change of clothes. He’s still bleary-eyed when he steps into the kitchen, and so it takes him a second to see who’s sitting by the kitchen table.

“You,” Tony says.

“Hi,” Steve says, awkwardly. He still looks pretty horrible – dark circles under his eyes, and his body is all sharp lines – but it’s been so long Tony’s even seen him in proper lighting that he wants to scream.

After a while, Tony becomes aware that he’s staring. “Right,” he coughs, grabs the pre-made coffee cup and a half-eaten sandwich he’s pretty sure was his in the first place. “So,” he says as he sits down in his regular spot, the seat opposite Steve. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better,” Steve says. “Listen, I know I said some stuff by the end there, I don’t—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tony says quickly. “I get you, it’s already forgotten.”

Tony’s amazed by how he can see the gratitude in Steve’s eyes. Were they always that blue? The arc reactor made them look so washed out. He studies him a little more. Steve’s features are clear, and he’s looking back with a steady gaze. Tony takes a sip of his coffee to clear his head – he frowns at the taste, and looks at the cup.

“Something wrong?” Steve asks.

“No, it’s just— Most advanced AI in the world, and he usually doesn’t manage to get my coffee exactly right.”

_“Captain Rogers helped out, sir.”_

Tony gives Steve a stunned look, and the tips of Steve’s ears redden slightly. “How are you even real,” he blurts.

Steve’s embarrassed expression turns into one of confusion. “What?”

“You— Steve, shit, you were in a bad way a day ago and now you’re already helping JARVIS with my coffee? God help us all.”

“I don’t understand,” Steve says.

Tony gives him a half-smile and says, “Never mind.” It seems to be a trait of good people that they don’t recognize their goodness because they always strive to be better, and Tony can’t explain how Steve sometimes makes everybody else just feel the tiniest bit inadequate.

Come to think of it, he can’t remember the last time he heard Steve say he didn’t understand. “No more genius time for you, then?” he says. He knows the words are poorly chosen as soon as they leave his mouth, and Steve’s angry flush strengthens that theory. It looks completely different from his half-pleased, half-embarrassed tint from earlier, and not half as enjoyable.

“No,” Steve says, the word hard, “I think not. If you’ll excuse me.”

He leaves the kitchen, and Tony is left staring down at his forlorn sandwich.

*

_“Master Clint is calling everyone to the kitchen, sir,”_ JARVIS says.

Tony grunts and flips a page.

_“He says, and I quote, ‘Steve is back, and we are having a fucking celebration. Be there or be square, loser.’”_

With a sigh, Tony puts his book down. He’s sulking, and it’s embarrassing and childish and all that, but whatever, because Steve is back and everything’s wrong. They were supposed to be okay now, things were supposed to go back to the way they were.

They haven’t, and instead Tony is hiding out in his personal living room, reading a beat-up version of _Flowers for Algernon_ that’s been with him since college.

_“Sir,”_ JARVIS reminds, after Tony’s spent too long staring into space.

“Right, right, gotta go hang with my peeps,” Tony says. “Oh, ouch. I am _not_ young enough to pull that off, that sounds awful. JARVIS, remind me never to say that again, especially not in front of other people.”

_“As you say, sir.”_

Everybody’s already sat down to dinner when Tony arrives, and he takes the only seat left open – the one opposite Steve. Steve gives him a strained smile when he sees him, so Tony pokes his foot and mouths, “Sorry.”

Steve nods, and his smile becomes genuine, but it retains a sad strain Tony doesn’t like. Instead, he turns at Natasha, who’s sitting next to him and looking between them with slightly raised eyebrows.

“It’s nothing,” Tony says. “Hand me the salt?”

“Sure,” she says agreeably. “I’m sure it’s none of my business anyway.”

“It’s definitely not,” Tony says, and gives her a wary look. She smiles serenely back.

“Tony, I require your insight,” Thor says, drawing them away into the conversation. “Clint assures me that it is common amongst Midgardians to wear garments underneath your clothing?”

“Uh, underwear?” Tony says. “I’d say underwear is pretty common, yeah – a shame, really.” His eyes lose their focus a little as he realizes what Thor asking means.

“I do not understand the need,” Thor says, mystified. “And what is the purpose of the lace?” he asks Clint.

Clint shrugs. “It’s comfy.”

Everyone around the table, save Natasha, looks at him.

“What?” he says defensively. “Like you guys don’t have your stuff. I was raised in a circus, leave me alone.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with a man knowing what his boys want to be cradled by, it’s just a surprise. I think I see a franchise expansion opportunity,” Tony muses, and Bruce nods to Natasha, who smacks the back of Tony’s head lightly.

“We are not having sexy underwear collections,” she says. “The kid collections are enough.”

“But—”

“ _No,_ ” Bruce says.

“Fine,” Tony says. “Even though, the _possibilities_.”

“Family friendly,” Natasha reminds, and Tony sighs, throwing up his hands.

Before he has time to ask Thor how the hell he avoids chafing, Natasha and Bruce steer the conversation away from underwear, and Steve – who’s been sitting quietly so far – is finally participating.

Everybody keeps looking at him, but Steve doesn’t appear to be majorly discomforted by it. They all know how it feels to have to reassure yourself that your team mate is still there, alive and breathing and still fighting beside you.

Dinner drags on – Bruce has ordered some cake from one of Tony’s favorite New York bakeries (he knows it’s a stretch to travel all the way to Idaho for a croissant, even though it feels like two orgasms and an epiphany), and they all jump on the reason to stay by the table, the light-hearted chatter at odds with the strong emotion in everybody’s eyes.

*

The Avengers have just returned from chasing a lead in the investigation of who destroyed Bruce’s lab (Tony wants to send the bill somewhere – his super-absorbent glass for that lab is _not_ an easy make, and while Tony has no problems paying, it’s the principle of the thing). It turned out to be a dead end, unfortunately – an old coworker of Bruce who was involved in some shady shit, but not their kind of shady shit. Still, Tony has nothing against a chance to beat up some mobsters.

Tony’s out of the armor, but still in the undersuit, when he bumps into Steve on the way to the – any – bathroom. Steve’s still in his uniform, though he’s lost the cowl and shield, and he looks more settled than he has in a while. A fight, even just a minor kerfuffle like theirs today, has gotten him back into the swing of things.

“Hey,” Tony says. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Steve says. “Great work today, you’ve all become very in tune while I was ... well.”

“And you glided right in,” Tony says. “We’ve missed you, Cap. Oh, I was wondering – did you want to come down to the workshop? It’s been, well, a while, I could show you some of the things I’m working on now.”

Even before he says anything, Tony can read Steve’s reply in the twist of his mouth and the hunch of his shoulders. “I have some stuff to do, I’m not sure whether I’ll have time,” Steve hedges.

Tony nods. “Yeah, okay, no problem.” He has to consciously keep a hand from rubbing at the arc reactor.

In the suddenly awkward air, Steve nods and makes to continue down the hallway, but Tony calls him back.

“Steve? It’s a standing offer.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve says with a small smile, but the line of his shoulders doesn’t ease. He leaves. Tony looks after him with a frown, but his body urgently reminds him where he was headed, and he lets the incident fall to the back of his mind.

*

Time passes, and everything slowly goes back to the way it was. Steve re-finds his place among them, and the others stop asking him about his head, if he’s fine, if this is too much.

Everything’s great, except for one thing – Steve is definitely avoiding Tony.

It’s not just in Tony’s head, either. Some of the other Avengers have commented on it, mostly to the effect of, “Tony, whatever you did, fix it.” The thing is, Tony would – he’d swallow his pride and do the most elaborate apology ever, because he’s kind of pathetic and finds himself missing Steve, if he just knew what he was apologizing for.

That line about genius was in poor taste, he gets that, but he’s already said sorry. If it were Tony, he’d be a little – okay, a lot – bitter about the whole “not as clever as I was”-situation, but Steve’s not the type to harbor ill feelings against Tony just because they’re back to status quo. He really hopes he doesn’t have to sit down with Captain America and give him the “theoretical smarts aren’t everything”-speech Tony got so often as a child – although that was in a different context entirely.

(Tony’s happy they’ve returned to status quo.)

The point is, Steve’s avoiding him and he doesn’t know why. Tony hasn’t seen much of Steve except for meals, fights and when they bump into each other in the common gym. Tony’s stopped seeking him out, because he can actually take a hint, but not knowing what he’s done wrong is grating at him. Like, really, distracting him from getting anything done and making him remember stupid stuff about Steve and - it’s got to stop, basically.

(The usual reason Tony assumes people drop him, because he has more issues than Windows ME, doesn’t really work with Steve either. Steve seemed to genuinely like him, before all this - or at least have a high tolerance for Tony’s bullshit.

Unless, of course, the only reason Steve sought him out was because of the work shop and the challenges Tony afforded.

He firmly doesn’t consider that theory.)

He decides to confront Steve, at least square the air between them – the pointed comments are getting on his nerves. Besides, his reading material lately has cast a morbid light on how bad it could’ve gone, and Tony doesn’t know what he would’ve done if Steve had died – if Steve had died without knowing.

*

One bright afternoon, Tony goes out to find Steve. Technically, JARVIS locates him within a split second of Tony asking, but that’s close enough.

“Any entry orders?” he asks, standing in front of Steve’s door. He has the override codes for every door in the Tower, but he’s found that using them in "non-emergencies" just tends to get people pissed off at him. (Even though he maintains that him being really, really bored definitely can lead to an emergency, and should be treated as such.)

_“None, sir. You’re free to enter.”_

He considers knocking, but knocking’s not really his style.

Steve looks up from where he’s sitting with wide eyes when Tony bursts in. His fingers are black, covered in smudges of charcoal. “Tony,” he says.

“Hey,” Tony says, drawing it out. He grabs a chair from the dining table and sits down opposite Steve – the shades are hung just low enough that Tony avoids the sun hitting his eyes. Steve’s sitting close to the window, with his back to the sun so the rays shine on his canvas.

He doesn’t seem nervous, and Tony doesn’t know why he expected him to be. Instead, Steve looks calm, but resigned – his body language is closed off, and he only turns toward Tony the tiniest bit. “What’s up?”

Steve holds up his blackened fingertips in answer.

“Can I see?” Tony tries.

“No.” Steve twists the canvas a little so it’s completely hidden from inquiring eyes.

Tony sighs. “Fair enough. Listen, I actually came here to talk to you about something – I know, I’m not hiding in my workshop until it goes away, shocker. Anyway, uh. Why are you mad at me?”

“Mad at you?” Steve’s brows furrow in confusion, and he tenses slightly.

“Yeah. You know, the whole avoiding me, and the shooting all the offers to hang out down, and the general ... avoidy-ness. That you’re doing.”

“I’m not avoiding you,” Steve lies - badly, and they both know it.

Tony sighs. “I’m not even gonna count that one, because that’s an offense to liars everywhere. Come on, Steve.”

“I’m not,” Steve insists, “I just didn’t see the point of keeping up some pointless pretense.”

Tony tilts his head back and looks at Steve. “I’m not following.”

“You don’t have to pretend to like me when I’m not capable of being on par with you, Tony,” Steve says. He says it kindly, but Tony still feels a sudden, cold wash.

“Oh,” he says, swallowing. “I, uh. Really? I kind of thought there was more to our friendship, but. You know, whatever, right? Science! Hooray.” He brushes imaginary lint off his pants, stands up, and when he’s halfway out the door, he remembers the theory he firmly chose not to consider.

“Wait,” he says, “you remember how I asked you to hang out? How do you justify that?”

Steve looks at him with resigned eyes, still sitting by the canvas. “That was just politeness.”

“Because I’m known for being so fucking polite?” Tony’s on to it now, he can feel it.

“Well, you certainly made your feelings clear in the kitchen the other day,” Steve snaps, and _finally_ , Tony thinks, some proper emotion. But Steve turns back to his canvas, puts charcoal against paper in a clear act of dismissal.

“Steve,” he says, feeling almost irrationally angry at the dismissal, that this is still kept against him, that Steve is willing to leave it like this. “I – really, fucking promise that I didn’t mean anything by that. I didn’t just want to spend time with you because you were super smart or whatever, it was because ... well.”

Steve doesn’t say anything, but his hands slow down to a stop, and he gives Tony an almost imperceptible glance.

Tony takes a deep breath, and sits down again. “I can’t believe you’re making me do this shit,” he grumbles. He wants to run away, wants to have a fucking drink, but _Steve could’ve died_ , and he didn’t, so why are they still like this? _Algernon_ , his head reminds himself, and he takes a deep breath. He hates putting himself on the line like this, hates having to come out and be _honest_ about shit – but he _wants_ , damn it, and Tony’s always been one to get what he want. If he has to do this to get there, then so be it. “Okay, seriously. I thought – well, I thought you were blowing me off because the intelligence thing was the only reason you wanted to spend time with me,” he confesses haltingly. “I – yeah. Provided a challenge? Or whatever. It’s happened before, so I ...”

Steve stays quiet.

Tony waits.

Steve continues to say nothing, and Tony’s about to give up, call this one a bust – better luck next time – when Steve says, lowly, “Tony.”

Tony snaps to attention, looks at him. Steve’s face is so open and honest – if it were himself, he’d be embarrassed beyond belief, hurrying to cover up his flaws and naked emotion. Steve’s never really been that kind of guy.

“I loved being able to keep up with you,” Steve admits. “And I – I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

Tony considers waggling his eyebrows, then remembers that he isn’t actually a 12 year old boy, and this _really_ isn’t the time.

“But it wouldn’t be like that now,” Steve says.

Steve is afraid he’ll be _disappointed_ , Tony realizes. “It definitely wouldn’t,” he says. “We’re going to have to work around that. But, Steve, can you – do you really feel that solving some puzzles and inventing stuff was all there was?”

They don’t talk about it. Up until now, neither of them have mentioned it at all, how their eyes would catch and hold, how Tony’s gaze would run along the lines of Steve’s throat when he laughed, how they always pretended they had to make room for Bruce on the Tony’s small workshop couch, even when both knew he wasn’t coming. The dark, long nights Tony would sit with Steve in the empty room and tell him about how idiotic his board members were, or how no one still knew whether Clint and Natasha were actually in a relationship or not.

“No,” Steve says, finally, looking at his canvas. He stands up. Tony can’t meet his eyes right now, the tension in the air is enough as it is – instead, he looks at the dust particles dancing in the sun rays just behind Steve.

Steve’s fingers on his jaw snaps him out of it, and he has the absurd thought of how the charcoal must leave marks on his skin as he looks into Steve’s eyes – sees the worry, and the warmth.

“We’ve been pretty stupid,” Tony murmurs, his eyes darting down to Steve’s mouth. Steve laughs a little.

“You wouldn’t think,” he says, and kisses Tony.

Kissing Steve isn’t like watching fireworks, nor does it pretend to be the solution to their disagreements and misunderstandings. It’s just _them_ , and Tony closes his eyes and lets himself imagine what will come after this, lazy mornings in bed and inappropriate behavior during debriefings and Steve shouting at him and him shouting at Steve but them still crawling into the same bed at the end of the day – until Steve’s thumb brushes slightly under his ear, his other hand drawing Tony closer, and Tony is drawn back into the present as he licks into Steve’s mouth.

They stand there for a long time, until the uncertainty and urgency has completely leeched out, and Tony finally manages to separate them. He doesn’t move far back, lets his forehead rest against Steve’s. A grey mass in his periphery catches his attention, and he turns slightly to let his eyes rest on Steve’s drawing. Steve lets him, his grip on Tony’s waist loosening.

The drawing doesn’t take Tony’s breath away, but it does make him stop. It’s them, in the workshop. Steve is just barely sketched in, but Tony is meticulously drawn and shadowed. He’s not laughing, or gesturing, or being his usual ostentatious self – he’s just smiling, a small, quiet smile as he looks over at Steve.

Tony didn’t even know he could smile like that. “How could you ever think I just hung out with you to boost my own ego,” he says slowly. He looks back at Steve, who’s looking down, the tips of his ears slightly pink. The sight is delicious enough that Tony has to grab him for another kiss, stepping forward so Steve’s back hits the window and wondering absently how far he can take it before Steve calls it public indecency.

“That goes for you too,” Steve tells him, flushed and happy, and _now_ the sun is hitting Tony’s eyes, blinding him, but he doesn’t care as he smiles back.

“Like I said,” he says, “ _idiots_.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the silly thing that's hindered me from writing any Can't Keep the Sky from Me. Sorry, if there's anyone waiting! Hope this is an okay peace offering. Part two should be up by Sunday at the latest - if you won't/can't subscribe here, I'll post about it on my [tumblr](http://kepteinen.tumblr.com). Also, I don't know anything about science. This should be pretty obvious - sorry.
> 
> (Bilgesnipehove is a reference to the Scandinavian dish smalahove, which is a lamb head. I haven't had it, but it sounds awful.)
> 
> "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled." - Plutarch


End file.
